Happy and Sad

"Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else".

from the book "Tuesdays with Morrie"
written by Mitch Albom

I started reading the book "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ahead of "Tuesdays with Morrie". But I finished the latter quickly. And even read it twice.

Only because "death" was given a more substantial meaning than to what is normally accepted as a fearful and an unwelcome part of living.

In "One Hundred Years of Solitude" most of the characters are so drawn to "depression" that made me think that Albert Ellis (a psychologist) could be right when he said that people tend to be "irrational" (in thoughts and actions) in so many ways. In that, they become distracted to other forms of pleasures than what could be the most important thing in this life.

That is to fill our world with human activities that create positive appreciation of all beings. Affection not affliction. Understanding not fighting. Tenderness not violence.

Death could be painful for some period of time especially for those left behind but when we look at the brighter side, it could really be another phase of what we call living. Living in another form. Living without pain. Living in paradise.

Life and death both have the same face of loneliness and happiness. We just have to accept both with lots of listening, seeing, touching,thinking, feeling and loving.

This I have learned from my father's death.